Pike & Shotte

Jim's Scots Covernanters v. Mark's Royalists

Mark had the same Royalist army that Steve & coy used last week...2 cavalry divs of 4 and 2 infantry divs of 2 pike & 4 shotte.  Following last week's disaster, the Scots army was changed to 2 infantry divs of 2 pike & 4 shotte & 1 cavalry div of 6.  They also had 2 highlander & a large commanded musket unit attached to 1 inf div.

The Scots (on left in pics) deployed to the left of centre with their cavalry on their right and the Musketeers and highlanders on their left.  The Royalists put all their cavalry on their right.  Both sides had their lefts overlapped by enemy cavalry.

The Scots sent their Highlanders & musketeers on a death or glory mission to delay the Royalist horse while the rest of the army advanced as fats as possible - which was not that fast for some of them (the right hand infantry & the cavalry only advanced at all because of our house rule that allows 1 move on fail if the order was dead straight ahead).

The highlanders & musketeers bought a bit of time, but were inevitably overwhelmed by the cavaliers.  The pike & shot near the hamlet gave up on outflanking the foot and fell back to form a hedgehog to protect the army's left from the cavaliers.  the rest of the division traded shotte with their opposite numbers.

The Scots cavalry charged the musketeers.  The foot failed to get into hedgehog and the 2 musketeers units were ridden down.  The Scotts horse were prevented from going on round the flank by the proximity rule as the reamining fott formed hedgehog.  The cavalry lined up to caracole the 2 hedgehogs while waiting for infantry support to arrive.  In the centre, the royalist foot counterattacked hoping to break through before the 2nd Scots infantry div arrived.

The left hand Scots infantry div did break, but the hedgehog, being unshaken remained an obstacle to the cavaliers which made a wide detour around it.  The right hand Scots infantry division may have been slow to arrive, but when they did, they were decisive.  The quickly broke a hedgehog.  This freed half the Scots cavalry to sweep into the rear of the enemy foot.  With the infantry on their flank.  The royalist musketeers were ridden down and both infantry divisions broke.  The Scots had one division of 3 broken, the Royalists now had 2 of 4.  The army morale rule in P&S are half divs broken = army broken, so the royalists were defeated.

It was a most enjoyable game.  The defining aspects of the period - the interplay of pike & shotte and of cavalry v. infantry both seemed to work very well.  The only house rule we used was our 1 move on failed order to go straight ahead - it probably saved the Scots bacon as their left would hardly have moved otherwise.  But to not have it and have half the army do nothing until the game was lost would not have been as good a game.